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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989171">andante, andante</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fthh/pseuds/fthh'>fthh</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, slow burn... of a sort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:33:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fthh/pseuds/fthh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed kissing boys,” Ingrid muses out loud, “I wonder if kissing girls is any different.”</p><p>Mercedes pauses what she’s doing, looks over at her. She’s trying hard not to show that her interest has been piqued.</p><p>(Mercedes and Ingrid's first five kisses.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Mercedes von Martritz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>andante, andante</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>these two live in my mind rent free! good for them</p><p>title taken from andante, andante by ABBA</p><p>also: unbeta'd</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>1.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ingrid cannot focus on whatever she’s supposed to read — she’s scribbling meaningless patterns in her notebook and her mind keeps drifting back to her father’s e-mail. He is weirdly obsessive with her love life, and in the latest missive he’s asked if she’s found a good, respectable man to marry yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks back to all the boys she’s ever dated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed kissing boys,” Ingrid muses out loud, “I wonder if kissing girls is any different.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mercedes pauses what she’s doing, looks over at her. She’s trying hard not to show that her interest has been piqued. No more than what’s appropriate, at least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We could…” Mercedes offers in not so many words. “I mean, if you’re curious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they do kiss. It’s nothing earth-shatteringly groundbreaking, but — Ingrid does slowly make the observation that Mercedes is much gentler and softer than anyone (any </span>
  <em>
    <span>man</span>
  </em>
  <span>) that she’s ever encountered. She wonders if this is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>woman</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing or just a Mercedes thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She also comes to the realisation that she might be a lesbian.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>2.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ingrid’s first year goes by in a flash. In between classes and pegasus-riding practice, she never really found the time to go out, but at the end of the school year she finally does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Over the past year she’s gone out with multiple women and has concluded that she is, indeed, a lesbian. She even called Dorothea her girlfriend, once, but they’ve broken up amicably. Wrong timing, or maybe the wrong person, they’d said. But they’ll always be friends.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She receives a text from Mercedes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Please hurry, a bunch of men are harassing me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Few seconds,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she shoots off, pushing the door into the bar. She immediately makes eye contact with Mercedes, and her instincts take charge of her movements:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ingrid sidles up next to Mercedes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey babe,” she greets, kissing Mercedes square on her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Her lips are still as soft as the first time. She tastes like strawberries and the warm sun on winter mornings.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, sorry,” one of the men says, although Ingrid doesn’t really know (and doesn’t care to know) who. She’s kind of preoccupied right now, in her defense.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>3.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for saving me, Ingrid! You’re my knight in shining armour!” Mercedes punctuates with a kiss on her cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Ingrid doesn’t mind the image.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Is it bad that the highlights of her sophomore year include surviving university and starting it with getting to kiss Mercedes?)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>4.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is two in the morning: her deadline for her final paper is five minutes away. It’s the last one of her four years and if she passes this year, she’ll finally get her degree.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know exactly how many energy drinks and coffees she’s had — she stopped counting after four. She remembers mixing her strongest coffee and one can of Red Wyvern Energy Drink and much of her memory has been hazy ever since.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mercedes, herself sporting prominent dark circles under her eyes from staying up late the past few nights, comes to check on her after hearing the commotion from her room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Ingrid belatedly realises she’s knocked a stack of books cleanly off her desk in her harried movements.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m done, Mercie!” Ingrid takes Mercedes’s face in both her hands, presses a kiss onto her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>5.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s two weeks later when they finally talk about it. Ingrid, out of her delirious state and finally caught up on her sleep, had admitted that she didn’t remember anything after clicking the red submit button that seemed to be mocking her for days. Mercedes had been too polite to bring it up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until— until, that is, two weeks later when they go to a party celebrating the end of their exams. Mercedes’s hand had brushed against hers while they’re passing around some red solo cups, and it’s like the final piece of the puzzle has finally fallen into place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The red on Ingrid’s cheeks are visible, even in the dim lighting of the party, and Mercedes asks if she’s okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just peachy,” Ingrid answers, clipped. She pulls Mercedes aside and into the privacy of someone’s bedroom. It’s pink all over. Ingrid wonders absently if this room belongs to someone from the Golden Deer house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ingrid?” Mercedes’s voice brings her back from her reverie. (Gentle, always gentle. Ingrid is sure she’s much different in bed, what with their thin walls and Mercedes bringing over women back to her dorm over the years. Ingrid is on fire.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mercie, did I… kiss you — two weeks ago?” Ingrid chokes out her words towards the end, her brain hesitating to let her speak lest she says something wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To her surprise, Mercedes only has the softest smile on her face. “I see you finally remembered.” She backs Ingrid against the door. “I am not sorry about it, if you were wondering. Are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ingrid’s hand plays at the collar of her shirt. She doesn’t know where her confidence has gone, but it is nowhere to be found right now. “N-no,” she stutters, “I don’t. Regret it— I mean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Ingrid looks at Mercedes, it’s like she can see right through her. Ingrid can’t help but bare her soul to this woman. “I have… been thinking about kissing you lately. I— keep going back to our first time. The kissing. Not like ‘it’ like sex. We haven’t had that yet,” she rambles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Yet’? My, Ingrid, you are quite presumptuous,” Mercedes teases her with a small giggle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ingrid stares at her. It boggles her how she can be gentle and have an air of lust about her all that the same time. But she doesn’t have the time to ponder upon that right now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I— uh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“May I kiss you? Not as your friend, but as someone who is romantically interested in you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mercedes could barely get her sentence out when Ingrid jumps at her and wraps her arms around her neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She still tastes like strawberries. Gentle and soft </span>
  <em>
    <span>can </span>
  </em>
  <span>be a woman thing, but Ingrid learns that Mercedes can also pull off rough and fast.)</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>listen, you guys, now that i'm fasting i have more time during the day to think about these two</p><p>as always, i am <a href="https://twitter.com/clonebutt">@clonebutt</a> on twitter if u wanna talk to me about Mercedes tiddies</p></blockquote></div></div>
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